PS 3515 
.E433 
L5 
1919 
Copy 1 



FE'S MINSTREL 

<A 3ook of* Verse 



DANIEL HENDERSON 






1 




Class 



v 3 



BookJL 



L 



Copyright N°. 



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COPYRIGHT DEFOSm 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/lifesminstrelbooOOhend 



LIFE"S MINSTREL 



LIFE'S MINSTREL 

A Book of Verse 



BY 

DANIEL HENDERSON 




NEW YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 Fifth Avenue 



Copyright, 1919 
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 









5bH 15 1919 



Printed in the United States of America 



©C1.A530814 



TO MY WIFE 

Beloved, if what I sing 
Has in it chords of worth, 

Has notes to which there cling 
The sweetness of the earth; 

And if within it lies 
The shadow of a gleam. 

That shows I sought to rise 
To some diviner theme; — 

Then let me weave this thong 
To link you to my art, 

For was not every song 

First sheltered in your heart? 



For permission to reprint certain of these poems, the 
author is grateful to McClure's Magazine, Harper s 
Magazine, The Outlook, The Bookman, Everybody's 
Magazine, The Forum, The Magazine of Contemporary 
Verse, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Munseys, 
The Ladies 9 Home Journal, The Woman's Home Com- 
panion, The Lyric, Books and the Book World (New 
York Sun), New York Evening Sun, New York Even- 
ing Post, and The Baltimore Sun. 

The author is also indebted to the National Arts' 
Club of New York City for permission to reproduce 
the prize war poem, "The Road to France." 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Will-o'-the Wisp 3 

The Starward Trail 4 

The Tea Trader 6 

The Homing Heart 7 

The Brushwood Fire 8 

i Mary o' the Moor 10 

-"The Scarlet Thread 12 

The Lad Who Went to Sea .... 14 

A Nature-lover Passes 16 

Bob White 17 

The Carolers of Wynne 18 

Love Endures 21 

Absence 22 

Building .23 

* Secrets of the Sea 25 

Youth and Death 26 

The Searchlight 27 

Lover and Lyre 28 

A Poet 29 

The Poet's Path 30 

The Other Side of the Fence . . . .31 

Her Eyes are Sentinels 33 

Voyage 34 

is 



x CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Living 35 

The Arbutus Seller 36 

A Rain Mood 37 

The Law of the Dust 38 

The Last Minstrel 39 

SIX SONNETS 

Closed Doors 43 

Can Dead Men Rise 44 

The New York Public Library . . .45 

Fulfillment 46 

Faces 47 

Escape 48 

GUNS AND PLOWSHARES 

The Wedding of the Fleets . . . .51 

A Sea Wind 53 

The People's Hour 54 

Joyce Kilmer 56 

Alan Seeger 57 

Walt Whitman 58 

War, Do Not Gloat! 59 

Fighting Stock 61 

The Army Chaplain 62 

Men of the Blood and Mire . 63 

A Soldier in Manhattan . . . . . 65 

The Gray Battalion 66 

To Certain Bolsheviki 68 

The Road to France 70 

The Embattled Forest 72 

The Flag of Man 74 



CONTENTS xi 

VERSES OF CHILDHOOD PAQB 

Finger-prints 79 

The Little Commoner 80 

When Life Calls 82 

LIGHTER CHORDS 

Marshal Bluebird 85 

The Repentant Wife 86 

A Banjo Romance 88 

The Song Hit 90 

The Lost Bazaars 91 



LIFE'S MINSTREL 



WILL-O'-THE-WISP 

"Will-o'-the-Wisp" — 'tis this the town is naming 

you; 
"An idle lad"; "a dreamy lad" — I hear my people 
blaming you. 
There's seldom roof above you, 
And yet you'd have me love you 
And share your luck; and follow on the wild, wild 
quest that's claiming you! 

"Will-o '-the- Wisp," another lad is wooing me; 
A busy lad ; a steady lad — forever he's pursuing me ! 

My mother bids me choose him; 

And why should I refuse him 
For a roving heart that every man predicts will be 
undoing me? 

"Will-o'-the-Wisp," if ill luck is to harry you, 
And if your end-of-rainbow quest into the mire will 
carry you; 
If ruin you are facing 
With your wild-goose chasing, 
You'll need a heart to bear you up. Let come what 
will — I'll marry you! 



THE STARWARD TRAIL 

"Tennyson's dream of an aerial fleet — 
Pooh! An idle bard's conceit!" 

Thus we mocked the Pioneers 
Plotting highways to the spheres! 

Thus we clung to humdrum things 

And scorned their lore of winds and wings ! 

Foolish it seemed to us to mark 
The sudden rise of the meadow-lark! 

How could mankind hope to follow 

The falcon's swoop; the flight of a swallow? 

While we grumbled, while we scoffed, 
Still, thank God, they looked aloft! 

Seaward, where a gray gull clove 
Mists that curtained cape and cove, 

4 



THE STARWARD TRAIL 

They saw a new Columbus dare 
Illimitable seas of air! 

The eagle breasting the coastwise gale 
Marked for them the way of the mail, 

And where snow-fleeing bird tribes went 
To find a tropic continent, 

They saw ethereal roads astir 
With many a human voyager! 

"Cling to the old and flout the new!" 
Age through age, the law holds true, 

Yet — the Dreamer again has won! 
Up, and follow his path to the sun! 



THE TEA TRADER 

Jackson at his counter packing tea— - 

Storing little bags away 

For the rush hours Saturday. 

On the tea-bins' painted faces 

Are quaint names and quainter places, 

And a geisha waves her fan 

And allures him to Japan ! 

'Mid the syrups, soaps and sodas 

Jackson muses on pagodas, 

And the tea's pervasive smell 

Works an opiatic spell 

On the old clerk's stuffy brain. . . 

He goes sailing to Formosa 

And to Java and Hong-kong; 

He goes trafficking in pekoe 

And bohea and oolong! 

Then a voice: "Six lemons, please, 
And a pound of English cheese!" 

Jackson's ship has come to shore 
In McConnelPs grocery store! 



THE HOMING HEART 

Each day, dear love, my roaa leads far 
From where you, home-contented, are. 
My mood is kin to that unrest 
Which sends the wild bird from its nest. 
But tho' I have a roaming heart, 
God gave me too a homing heart, — 
How swift at dusk my path runs to 
The lights of home, the arms of you! 



THE BRUSHWOOD FIRE 

Nicholas, Hamilton and I — 
Friends, whose houses lie close by — 
Join in raking the leaves and stalks 
October drops on our lawns and walks; 
Join in building a brushwood fire 
As high as an urchin could desire. 

Ours is the primitive joy of seeing 
Flame leap into animate being. 
Like as a dancer sheds her cloak, 
Fire springs out of the pungent smoke, 
Wafting a subtle, rare perfume 
That carries a hint of lilac bloom, 
A scent of clover and eglantine 
Blended with mint and box and pine. 

Yet, as the quivering name dies down 
And the cinders powder to a brown, 
And the smoke melts into the fading day, 
Laughter dies, and our mood turns gray. 

8 



THE BRUSHWOOD FIRE 

Is it because the brushwood fire 
Seems to us now the summer's pyre? 
Is it because we think its red 
Is made of blood the roses shed? 
Is it that we have set alight 
The heart of spring in our pagan rite? 
Or that we know that the orchard's blush, 
The nests of the oriole and thrush, 
Violet, dogwood, all things vernal, 
All that our souls would make eternal, 
Burgeoning May and golden September 
Have their death in the dying ember? 



MARY O' THE MOOR 

Mary Lang — the laughing one? Soldier, you'll not 
find her 
If you linger at her gate or tap upon her door; 
She is roving, roving, roving, though our hearts 
would bind her — 
Ask the shepherds for the way to "Mary o' the 
Moor." 

So — you're Duncan, her betrothed ! You're ghostly 
in the gloaming ! 
Angus thought he left you dead upon a trench's 
floor! 
'Twas his news that broke her heart and set her feet 
to roaming — 
Cleave the mists and climb the rocks to "Mary 
o' the Moor!" 

Aye, no doubt you can explain — such things befall 
in battle! 
Go and tell her wny the post no letters from you 
bore! 

10 



MARY 0' THE MOOR 

Go and bring her back again from wandering with 
the cattle — 
Bring us gleeful Mary Lang, not "Mary o' the 
Moor!" 



11 



THE SCARLET THREAD 

"Behold, when we come to the land, thou shalt 
bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which 
thou hast let us down by" — Joshua %:18. 

Red as the lips of Rahab, 

Harlot of Jericho, 
Hung the thread from her casement 

Ages on ages ago ! 

Over the fire and slaughter 

Shone the cord's rich flame ! 
Out of her ruined city 

Rahab, the shielded, came! 

Swiftly the spinners of evil 

Gathered the thread and spun: 

Nightly robed in its color 
Daughters of Babylon! 

How its riotous tangles 

Twisted dancer and priest! 
Twined the groves of Astarte; 

Girdled the emperor's feast! 
12 



THE SCARLET THREAD 

Solomon, from his window, 

Watching Jerusalem, 
Mused on the subtle woman 

Flaunting her scarlet hem ! 

Men go marching to battle; 

Suddenly flares from a door — 
Deadlier than their foemen — 

Crimson that Rahab wore ! 

Yea, and the spindles that fashioned 

Nineveh's red attire 
Spun for our present cities 

The halter of desire ! 

Then is the thread so woven 

Into the web of the race 
That, age through age, we must bear it 

Down to the Judgment-place? 

When will our spirits sicken 
Of weaving the cloth of doom? 

When will the God within us 
Shatter its shuttle and loom? 



13 



THE LAD WHO WENT TO SEA 

My grandsire a skipper was, 

My brother follows the sea, 
My father farms, and I plow for him, 

But the deep is calling me. 

I look at the rippling wheat 

And I see but wind-whipped surge ; 

From the rim of the sky the clouds 
As white-winged ships emerge; 

When the stars come out, I think 
But of men who by them steer 

In storms, not the swish of tree 
But the crack of mast I hear; 

And yon white bit of road, 

Half hid by the hedging leas, 
Seems a strip of sun-bleached coral reef 

In the lap of emerald seas. 
14 



THE LAD WHO WENT TO SEA 

Oh my father will miss my help, 
My mother for me will weep, 

But my grandsire Joel will understand 
Why I must sail the deep ! 

There's a brig for Africa's coast 
That's shipping a crew in the bay, 

And the voice of the sea says "Go !" to me 
And to-night I'll be on my way! 



15 



A NATURE-LOVER PASSES 

(In certain places, it is still the custom to tell 
the bees that a member of the family has died.) 

Bees, go tell the things he treasured — 

Oak and grass and violet — 
That altho his life was measured 

He is with them 3 T et! 

Tell the wild rose and the clover 
That the earth has made him over! 
Tell the lilting, loitering stream 
He is sharer of its dream ! 
Whisper to the April wood 
Of his blending in its mood ! 
Tell the wind his spirit flows 
In whatever way it blows ! 
Tell the thrush it draws its art 
From the rapture of his heart! 
Bees, to his green shelter bring 
All of earth's bright gossiping: — 
Tales of feather, flower or fur; 
Sap upmounting; wings astir! 

Now we may no more attend him, 
Bid his loved wild things befriend him ! 
16 



BOB WHITE 

I heard them greet the peep of ctawn 

From every bush and tree: 
Blackbird, bluebird, robin, wren, 

Jay, thrasher, chickadee; 
Then I heard, from his retreat 
Somewhere in the corn or wheat, 

Bob White welcoming the morning 
And I thought his song more sweet: 

"Bob White! Bob White!" 
Was that note of bird or sprite- 
Bob White? 

I have listened in the shadows 

To the haunting whippoorwill, 
I have heard the rapturous mocker, 

Oh, a wealth of sweetness spill! 
Yet not these to-day I hear, 
But one sound stayed in my ear — 

Just the quail's full-throated whistle, 
Just his double note of cheer: 

"Bob White! Bob White!" 
May no gun your fluting blight — s 
Bob White! 
17 



THE CAROLERS OF WYNNE 

The little town of Wynne 

Was festooned and ablaze, 
As silvery bells rang in 

The holiest of days, 
And joyous town-folk met 

To sing the Christ-Child's praise. 

The mayor and aldermen 

A truce to business swore, 
And with the choristers 

Went singing, door to door, 
Of the holy baby born 

Upon a stable floor. 

They woke the boulevard — ■ 

Wynne's lordliest avenue; 
The mayor himself dwelt here, 

The city fathers, too; 
Here they had millions spent 

For the pleasure of the few. 
18 



TEE CAROLERS OF WYNNE 

"For if," they said, "our street 
With loveliness we gown, 

Then visitors who come 
To estimate our town 

Will speak abroad our praise, 
And give us great renown!" 

An impulse led them thence, 
And down a narrow street 

Where huddled figures marked 
The coming of their feet; 

Where misery and filth 

Had stifled all things sweet! 

To flimsy tenements 

With carolings they came; 

To huts where happiness 
Was nothing but a name; 

To the hungry rose their songs, 
To the sick, and blind, and lame ! 

"Joy to the world !" they sang, 
But groans belied their tale! 

"No more let sorrow grow!" 

(They heard gaunt beggars rail! 

13 



TEE CAROLERS OF WYNNE 

Their gladdest note was hushed 
Before a starved child's wail! 

The mayor and aldermen 
Fled from this bitter school, 

But on their hearts was seared 
The Christlj law of Yule: 

"Who serves the poor and weak, 
Makes cities beautiful!" 



20 



LOVE ENDURES 

I gather wisdom from the earth; 

I note its tides and changes; 
I ponder how from feast to dearth, 

From bud to blight, it ranges! 
I learn how surely fortune goes; 

How swiftly friendships perish ! 
I see futurity's thick snows 

Loom over all we cherish! 
Yet well I know my love for you, 

Through life's brief season vernal, 
Will drink the Everlasting's dew — 

Your rose in the Eternal! 



21 



ABSENCE 

I am tempted to tell how I want her : 
But circumstance holds us apart, 

And why should my yearning haunt her- 
Who has the same ache in her heart? 

So I put my feelings in fetters! 

I hamper and shackle my pen! 
The proof seems plain in my letters 

That I am the coolest of men! 

Yet she knows that my hours are ages! 

She sees that my coldness is fire! 
She reads in my empty pages 

The gulfs of my soul's desire! 



BUILDING 

Tho' my tools are few and blunted, 
Tho' unskilled my plodding hand, 

All the long days through I labor 
At the building I had plann'd. 

And altho' my heart sinks in me 
When I weigh what I have wrought 

With the structure, tall and splendid, 
I had builded in my thought, 

[While the workmen round about me 
Skill with finer tools combine 

[Till their buildings, rising grandly, 
Cast their shadows over mine, 

Yet I hope that when the master 
From a far land comes to learn 

If the workmen of his kingdom 

Faithful proved through his sojourn, 
23 



BUILDING 

And my comrades from their labors 
Go, commended by their lord, 

And he turns to where I dumbly 
Wait his censure or reward, 

He will read in my poor building 
All the noble things I plann'd; 

Judge by what my soul aspired to, 
Not by labors of my hand. 



24 



SECRETS OF THE SEA 

My hut by the sea was built 

Of the wrecks of long-lost ships. 
In the night its driftwood walls 

And the wind and waves have lips ; 
As I lie in my bed they whisper to me 
Of many an ocean mystery. 

I know where the great ships went 

That were never seen again ; 
I know how the floor of the deep 

Was strewn with bones of men ; 
I know who were cowards, I know who were brave, 
When men saw their sepulchers in the wave! 

I know of a sealer's crew 

That is freezing to death on a floe; 
How fishermen pay with their lives 

For the catch of the day, I know. 
As I rise each morn to fish in the sea, 
I ask: "Will the night hear a tale about me?" 



25 



YOUTH AND DEATH 

Ripe and waiting hung the fruit upon life's 

crowded limb: 
Death came walking where the branches swayed and 

bent to him! 
Death came seeking — but he left the mellow fruit 

to rust, 
And he plucked the tenderest buds and flung them 

to the dust! 



26 



THE SEARCHLIGHT 

I saw a great white shaft of light 

Skyward leaping, earthward sloping; 

Across the regions of the night 
Forever groping! 

I thought how Man's undaunted mind — 
Spurred by a hope that is supernal — 

Explores the firmament to find 
A gate to the eternal ! 



27 



LOVER AND LYRE 

Beloved, when men wonder 

What poems I bring 
To you, my sweet lady 

Of wedlock and ring; 

I think how the sunset 
Has baffled art's brush; 

How the singer's voice fails 
That would follow the thrush. 

Then how may my heart, 
With its lyrics of fire 

Find tongue in the cool, 

Measured twang of my lyre? 



28 



A POET 

His verse that soars on smooth, swift wing 

Flies out of his remembering! 

But ever in his heart awaking 

Are songs he crippled in the making! 



£9 



THE POET'S PATH 

When Chaucer sang — did he pursue 

A mystic or exotic strain? 
Not so ! From folk he met he drew 

His Canterbury train! 

And Shakespeare of the deathless page — * 

What won him immortality? 
Because he made our world his stage 

He lives for you and me! 

And Burns, his brief life madly spent, 
Why does he sway us to this hour? 

He voiced a ruined maid's lament! 
He mourned a broken flower! 

Ye who aspire to follow Song, 

Spurn not the plain, broad path of art! 
Walk with great poets through the throng 

And feed the common heart ! 



30 



THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE 

Men in the country yearn 

For the streets of the town as they till; 
But men of the city turn 

Their thoughts to meadow and hill. 

Sailors, pent on the deep, 

Dream of houses and trees ; 
But the landsmen they envy keep 

Their thoughts on the seven seas. 

Travelers long for home, 

And hold its memory green; 
But stay-at-homes would roam, 

With all of the world between. 

Cheery our own hearth fires ! 

Pleasant our places of birth! 
Why do our hearts' desires 

Lie at the ends of earth? 
31 



THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE 

Abram went up out of Ur, 

Yet blame not the sons of Sheni ; 

The wandering foot was astir 

Thousands of years before them! 

Cain turned east in pursuit 
Of a star-eyed damsel of Nod! 

Adam, for lovelier fruit, 

Left his groves — and his God ! 



sa 



HER EYES ARE SENTINELS 

Her eyes are sentinels 

That faithfully patrol 
The pathway to her heart — 

And past them lies my goal! 

I venture boldly where 

Their searching torches shine — 
Why should I be afraid 

Where love is countersign? 

Her eyes are sentinels, 
And yet, when I implore, 

Their beacons light for me 
Her spirit's open door! 



33 



VOYAGE 

Singly my shallop cleaves the surge! 
Singly it journeys across life's verge! 

It answers the hail of passing ships ! 
It pauses a space at crowded slips! 

And for a while a snow-white sail 
Companions it through sun and gale, 

But, a lonely ship on a lonely sea, 
It draws to its port of destiny! 



U 



THE LIVING 

I tread once more the market-place; 

In trafficking mj heart seeks balm; 
But often, over trade's turmoil 

There falls a holy calm. 

A thing she loved has met my sight : 
Arbutus, or a clump of ferns; 

Or in a stall of books I find 
Her well-loved poet, Burns. 

The thrushes sing — and call her back; 

I see her friends smile from the throng; 
Or from some window comes a snatch 

Of her most-treasured song. 

Because she loved the things of earth 
They hold her gentle spirit yet. 

They cry to me, "Remember her!" 
As if I could forget! 



• o © 



35 



THE ARBUTUS SELLER 

Into the city on this April day — 

From greening woods to wintry highways bending, 
He passes with arbutus-laden tray, 

A wealth of fragrance every step attending. 
An angel unawares is in this clod; 

His ceaseless, clamorous cry is his soul's duty— 
This vender comes, ambassador from God, 

To bring unto the famished town His beauty! 



36 



A RAIN MOOD 

I listen in the night 
To the singing rain. 

By its knocking on the roof, 
By its tap upon the pane, 

I am tempted out 

To the dripping lane ! 

Did some primeval pair, 
In some April flood, 

Quit their cave to revel 
In the storm and mud — 

And pass the thrill along 
To stir my blood? 



37 



THE LAW OF THE DUST 

Time, with your pen in the past, 

Time, with jour scrolls that run 
Back of the birth of man, 

Back to the Primal One, 
What is the word you mold 

Out of the ash of a star, 
Out of a crumbled creed, 

Out of the clay of a czar? 
Miters and scepters rust ! 

Crushed are conquerors' spears, 
Armies and nations lie 

Dead in the moldering years ! 
Layer on layer of life 

Died in the cinders and shale — 
What will our wise men know 

When they decipher your tale? 

Came the whisper of Time: 

"This is the future's key — 

These worlds bloomed — and are dust! 

So your world will be!" 



38 



THE LAST MINSTREL 

I saw a lonely harper on a Coney Island boat — 

An oM pathetic minstrel with an old pathetic note ! 

His eyes were fiery caverns ; his beard was long and 
hoar; 

He seemed, within this new-world throng, the earth's 
last troubadour! 

And, blowing from an ancient shore, a wind possessed 
his strings 

And sang a song whose burden was of scarce- 
remembered things: — 

The tune that David made for Saul — a soft, hill- 
country strain 

That led the king from feverish courts to quiet 
streams again! 

The mourning note that Israel played in her 
captivity, 

Before her lyre was hushed and hung upon the 
willow tree! 

A saga that some Iceland bard wrought to his 
chieftain's glory! 

39 



THE LAST MINSTREL 

From viking feast, from feudal throne, the minstrel 

drew his storp ! 
The harp that once through Tara's halls the soul 

of music shed 
Vied with a modern waltz to win this last lone bard 

his bread! 



4C 



SIX SONNETS 



CLOSED DOORS 

My heart shall wear no chains of memory! 

No sombre tide from yesteryear shall flow! 

I shall not think of death's repeated blow 
Whereby the true and valiant went from me! 
I shut out friendships that have ceased to be! 

I turn from dreams that flared and lost their 
glow! 

A hard and misty way have I to go — 
I bar old griefs, to journey strong and free! 

And yet — how many nights there comes a gust 
That sweeps at will across my consciousness 
And flings wide doors I closed against distress! 

So that those things that from my mind I thrust, 
Loosed by this wind from Thought's deserted 

coasts, 
Rush in and overwhelm me with their ghosts! 



43 



CAN DEAD MEN RISE? 

I hold no doubt of immortality ! 

To be reborn is no more strange than birth. 

Lo, life has had its source in lifeless earth — 
Man rose from death when Adam came to be ! 
Why question that the grave shall set us free 

When, out of fire and dew and dust and dearth, 

Moses and Shakespeare brought their dreams and 
worth, 
And Jesus mounted to His destiny? 

Then, having lived creation's miracle, 

Say not, when men to dreamless sleep are borne, 
That life for them is broken and outworn — 

The soul shall build its future in its cell! 

The God who breathed into our frame His breath 
Will keep His children from the mold of death! 



44 



THE NEW YORK PUBLIC 
LIBRARY 

From out the library's silent halls I strode 

Into the traffic of Fifth Avenue; 

Into a scene of turmoil, from a view 
Of book-lined aisles where Milton's lamp still glowed ; 
Where valiant spirits of the past abode; 

Where, in a cloister-hush, men paid their due 

Of reverence to the great souls whence they drew 
Ideals and dreams to lighten their long road. 

The two contrasted strangely in my thought — 
This tide of noisy, hurrying, heedless men, 
And yonder brooding temple of earth's lore; 
Yet from this current wisdom's fane was wrought! 
Within this life-stream Chaucer dipped his pen, 
And Shakespeare searched its depths and found 
his ore! 



45 



FULFILLMENT 

Beauty, Beloved, I found in various dress: — 
In white/ waves breaking over yellow bars ; 
In moonlit harbors rimmed by ghostly spars; 

In meadows blazing with the sun's impress; 

In roses trembling at the wind's caress. 

When glorious banners flamed by to the wars, 
Or evening donned her diamond robe of stars, 

My spirit felt the kiss of loveliness. 

And yet I had a sense of longing still, 
Unsatisfied by landscape or by art ; 

Unquenched before the glow of sunset skies ! 
It was a hunger you alone could fill, 

You with a flame of love within your heart 
Kindling eternal beauty in your eyes ! 



4$ 



FACES 

Life writes man's history upon his face. 

She takes his plastic features for her scroll 

And traces there the story of his soul ; 
Its gladness, grief, nobility, disgrace. 
Come, read the parchment in the market place; 

Mark each man, hurrying to possess his goal ; 

Here watch the living manuscript unroll 
Its record of the progress of the race. 

How runs the story to its destiny? 

See, there is much of woe and sin in sight! 

Can it be life a happier ending scorns? 
Not so ! turn back and read her prophecy 

That she should trace the triumph of the Right — 

It lies upon that face men crowned with thorns! 



47 



ESCAPE 

My strength, my skill, I barter week by week: 
There is a covenant I hold with Trade 
Whereby for faithful service I am paid 

The sustenance and comforts that I seek. 

I scarce dare look to Beauty's shining peak 
Or hear the voice of Loveliness persuade — 
The market's hand forever on me is laid; 

Forever in its feverish tongue I speak. 

And yet, thank God ! Night brings its interlude 
When, with my mate, my books, my stars, my 

dreams, 
I may forget the morrow and its schemes; 

When I may climb to taste Olympian food ; 

When my starved spirit struggles to its flower, 
Fed by the holy dew of this rich hour! 



48 



GUNS AND PLOWSHARES 



THE WEDDING OF THE FLEETS 

(America to Britain) 

Britain, j'ours is the birthright 

Of fog and gale and sea! 
Never the restless tide outruns 

The reach of your destiny! 

Yet of your ocean mother 

I, too, drew my stock! 
Drake and Raleigh within me 

Led me to Plymouth Rock ! 

What if my planet rises 

Here in the west, apart? 
Mine is your Keltic vision! 

Mine is your Saxon heart! 

Came the hour of your peril! 

God, how you rose and defied 
Hate that poisoned the roadways! 

Death that lurked in the tide! 
51 



THE WEDDING OF THE FLEETS 

Strained my ships at their moorings! 

Rang my admirals' cry: — 
"Send us to fight by our brothers! 

Send — or our souls will die!" 

Then were our squadrons wedded — 
There in the spume and mist 

Crushing the common danger! 
Pledging the deathless tryst! 

This is our law, O Britain: — 
What we have joined shall be 

Blent on the face of the waters 
Till God shall dry the sea! 

Whither our mandates lead us, 
Whither our keels may run, 

British and Yankee sailors 
A world apart — are one! 



52 



A SEA WIND 

The wind to-night is from the sea. 
I hear within its rush and roar 
Sounds that are alien to our shore: — 

The ceaseless boom of cannonry, 

The thundering shock of war! 

On nights like these, can those who died 
Rise from their graves in Flanders' loam 
And span the ocean's rack and foam? 

Yea, can lost warriors rouse and ride 
To us who yearn at home? 

The wind to-night is from the sea — 

From shores that Death has held in chain- 
And 0, a voice is in the rain ! 

Hush! Hush! My heart! It cannot be 
That dead men speak again! 



53 



THE PEOPLE'S HOUR 

It is the people's hour, and kings 

Are strangling in the web they spun! 

No more the thirsting bayonet springs; 
The last red drop has run. 

War flees us with his hideous train 

Of woe and pestilence and dearth! 
The priest rebuilds the ruined fane — > 

Christ's peace returns to earth! 

We rear the roof and drive the plow 
Among the wreckage War has left; 

All blighted things will quicken now — ; 
Except the hearts bereft. 

And those staunch hearts that were our shields- 
Our dead, yet deathless, warrior throng — 

May sleep in peace in Flanders' fields: 
We made no truce with Wrong! 

54 



TEE PEOPLE'S HOUR 

It is the people's hour! We leap 
To seize the scepter and the crown! 

That freedom won with blood we keep, 
And naught shall tread us down! 

And yet — the Liberty we gain 

May set more than we reckon free! 

Lo ! strains forever at his chain 
Our arch-foe, Anarchy ! 

It is the people's hour so long 

As Justice rules the heart of man! 

So long as Brotherhood is strong, 
And Law controls the plan! 

Not ours the strength to shape, Lord God, 
The goal and glory of our race! 

[We sunder the oppressor's rod — i 
Keep Thou the Pilot's place ! 



55 



JOYCE KILMER 

Strength without stint we gave to Liberty 

When she leapt forth to shatter earth's last 
chains ! 
Greatly with soul and brawn and wealth wrought we, 

Girding her spirit, shielding her rich veins ! 
Now comes her triumph ! Broken in their wars, 

Tyrants are groveling at her shining hem! 
Now comes her crowning hour! Heaven's farthest 
stars 

Cluster to form her deathless diadem! 
Shall we exult, who toiled in her great host? 

Nay, for this thought is bludgeoning our pride : — 
,We lived for Freedom to our uttermost, 

But for her cause — he died! 



56 



ALAN SEEGER 

"I have a rendezvous with death 
In some disputed barricade — " 
— Alan Seeger. 

He did not prize too much the sounding phrase; 
Nor guard too zealously his poet's bays ; 
Nor dream that he could slay the hosts of Wrong 
With just the marching measures of his song! 

He kept his rendezvous — in that dark place 

His life became a ransom for his race. 

Hark now! His song is on his nation's breath — 

His memory shall have no tryst with death! 



57 



WALT WHITMAN 

I saw all breeds blend into one nation, 
Furling their flags of the battle mood! 

I saw a Charta of Federation 
Binding all men to brotherhood! 

Whose dream flashed forth when the bars were 
cloven? 

And whose heart flamed to fuse the mass? 
Whitman, this new world's ties were woven 

Out of your Leaves of Grass! 



58 



WAR, DO NOT GLOAT! 

War, do not gloat 

Because you see our millions in your road! 

Do not delude yourself that lures by which 

You led kings forth to rape and slay 

Have snared our feet! 

Glory? 

We want no laurels wrung from your foul field ! 

Empire ? 

It is a bait we spurn ! 

We loathe your spirit! 

We abominate 

Your aim to throne the brute and crush the soul! 

We follow you, 

And yet your goal and ours 

Are set as far apart as heaven and hell! 

It is not you who leads us this red road! 

We take your path to build upon your wrecks; 

To lift humanity be} T ond your clutch! 

Nay, never gloat 

59 



WAR, DO NOT GLOAT! 

Because we choose your way! 

[We track you but to slay you! 

With these swords 

We sweep your armies from the path of Peace! 



60 



FIGHTING STOCK 

Dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt 

Quentin, the eagle, nobly dead! 
Theodore wounded, but plunging ahead; 
Archie, torn in the shrapnel's rain, 
Pleading to lead his lads again! 
Kermit, leaping from honors won 
To wrench new victories from the Hun! 
Here is no shielded princeling clan, 
But front-line champions of man! 
Come, have we called the roll entire? 
Nay, add to it that sturdy sire 
Who guides in spirit his Bayard breed 
fTo starry goal and shining deed! 

Fighting stock ! Fighting stock ! 
And millions more of the same brave strain, 
Plowing through Picardy and Lorraine! 
What tyrant can withstand their shock? 
Fighting stock! Fighting stock! 



61 



THE ARMY CHAPLAIN 

These sodden, slimy trenches are my pews; 
This is my flock — rude, blood-bespattered men. 
Some boys are here whom I once taught at home; 
Far closer are we now than in those days. 
Then I have other lads who say the church 
Breeds superstition and hypocrisy. 
Some swear and gamble — till I won their hearts 
I heard them curse me for a "Holy Joe!" 

Yet with what awe I minister to them — 
As fine a breed as God put on earth! 
Irreverent — true! But by their scoffs they mask 
The altar fires aflame within their breasts ! 
I do not preach to them that bloodless Christ 
Whom artists picture haunting No Man's Land- 
Aloof and shuddering at the things He sees. 
Instead, I tell them of that Man who met 
With fearless heart a despot's cross and sword, 
And died, that through His death the soul might live. 

They nod their heads; they understand this 

Christ. . . . 
They take Him with them to their Calvary! 

6* 



MEN OF THE BLOOD AND MIRE 

We whom the draft rejected; 

We who stay by the stuff; 
We who measure our manhood 

And find that it isn't enough; 
We who are gray and burdened; 

We whom the trades require — * 
Will you permit us to hail you, 

Men of the Blood and Mire? 

We of the thundering forum; 

We of the pen and press ; 
We who are pouring our utmost 

Into our land's success; 
We of the Cross and Triangle, 

Lofty in deed and desire — 
God, how we shrivel before you, 

Men of the Blood and Mire ! 

Aye, we are square with conscience — ■ 
We are reservists all; 
63 



MEN OF THE BLOOD AND MIRE 

Aye, when your ranks are gaping, 
We will fight where you fall! 

Yet, while we wait, your altar 
Flames in the gas and fire — 

We are the shade of your glory, 
Men of the Blood and Mire ! 



64 



A SOLDIER IN MANHATTAN 

Soldier, home from the wars, 
Threading our throngs again, 

Lost, with jour golden bars, 
In a world of hurrying men; 

What if the crowd be mute? 

Read in our eyes your due! 
See how our hearts salute 

The soul of the race in you! 



65 



THE GRAY BATTALION 

O pallid, pallid hosts, are you flesh or are you 
ghosts, 
With your drums that give no beat, with your 
sober, silent tramp? 
What flags are these that rise like phantoms on our 
skies ? 
What frontier was your bivouac and whither is 
your camp? 

"We are men who took the sword for the nations and 
the Lord ! 
We charged the shattering guns ! We met the 
storming fire! 
If France has ruddy stains they were crimsoned from 
our veins! 
And we died, not knowing we would win our ut- 
termost desire! 

"Not for us the laureled arch ! Not for us the ban- 
nered march ! 
Not for us the throngs exulting as the victor's 
pasan rolls ! 

66 



THE GRAY BATTALION 

Still we tread the darkened roads which we trudged 
with pressing loads, 
And the ruts that racked our bodies are a guid- 
ance for our souls ! 

"We are those who could not sleep where we lay be- 
yond the deep ! 
We are those who lay unresting in the friendly 
foreign loam! 
And our Captain and our Lord gave us this for our 
reward : 
To march amid the night mists to the places we 
called home!" 



t>7 



TO CERTAIN BOLSHEVIKI 

Before we knew your name, you dwelt with us ! 
You watched us from the East Side or the Bronx, 
You moved among the masses in our squares. 
Perhaps we rubbed your elbows some noon hour 
As you strolled gabbling through Fifth Avenue — 
Ishmaelites, with curses for our breed! 

4 

Was it not true, my friends, that in your thought 

Fifth Avenue became America? 

You saw its windows filled with costly stuffs, 

And watched rich motor-cars go up and down 

In never-ending streams; 

And when you went back to your seething land 

You told your simple countrymen we were 

A nation as luxurious as was Rome — 

A people ruled by soulless capitalists. 

You did not learn our languages, 
Nor come into our homes. 

You did not step from Wall Street to discern 
If our New England folk were slaves to gold. 

68 



TO CERTAIN B0LSHEVIK1 

You did not try our South, nor test our West ; 
Nor bathe your spirit in the human tides 
That sweep our strong young land from coast to 
coast ! 

For if you had, you would have told your folk 

That this was their warm-hearted brotherland, — 

Brother in freedom, 

Brother in generous purpose, 

Brother in all things 

That make for justice and democracy! 



69 



THE ROAD TO FRANCE 

(National Arts Club's Prize War Poem) 

Thank God our liberating lance 

Goes flaming on the way to France ! 

To France — the trail the Gurkhas found! 

To France — old England's rallying ground! 

To France — the path the Russians strode! 

To France — the Anzac's glory road! 

To France — where our Lost Legion ran 

To fight and die for God and man ! 

To France — with every race and breed 

That hates Oppression's brutal creed! 

Ah France — how could our hearts forget 
The path by which came Lafayette? 
How could the haze of doubt hang low 
Upon the road of Rochambeau? 
At last, thank God ! At last we see 
There is no tribal Liberty! 
70 



TEE ROAD TO FRANCE 

No beacon lighting just our shores ! 
No Freedom guarding but our doors ! 
The flame she kindled for out sires 
Burns now in Europe's battle fires ! 
The soul that led our fathers west 
Turns back to free the world's oppressed! 

Allies, you have not called in vain ! 
We share your conflict and your pain! 
"Old Glory," through new stains and rents, 
Partakes of Freedom's sacraments! 
Into that hell his will creates 
We drive the foe; his lusts, his hates! 
Last come, we will be last to stay — 
Till Right has had her crowning day! 
Replenish, comrades, from our veins, 
The blood the sword of despot drains, 
And make our eager sacrifice 
Part of the freely-rendered price 
You pay to lift humanity — 
You pay to make our brothers free ! 
See, with what proud hearts we advance — 
To France! 



71 



THE EMBATTLED FOREST 

"Steadfast, my trees !" (thus the wood whispered) . 

"Man is making war! 

Man is blasting hills and shattering cities to gain 
his armies a road! 

I alone thwart him ! 

I am the last fortress ! 

Beauty has fled to my heart for sanctuary ! 

Shelter her, my poplars ! 

Be brave, my ash! 

Chestnuts, twine your limbs thickly! 

Underwoods, grow densely! 

Thorns and vines, weave yourself into an impene- 
trable barrier! 

Rise before man dark and impassable! 

"He strikes ! His blades tear me ! 
His bullets startle my mating birds ! 
My frightened fawns fly to my innermost coverts! 
Steadfast, my trees! 
Resist him still, my thickets ! 

7fc 



THE EMBATTLED FOREST 

Engulf and bewilder him! 
See ! He stumbles and halts ! 
He turns back! 
I have conquered him ! 

"He comes again! 

What rushes upon me with the fury of ten thousand 

North Winds? 
What thunderbolts rend me? 
My oak ! My venerable oak ! 
Time delayed too long his scything — 
This wild wind slays you ! 
My tender birch, you are bleeding! 
My wild rose! My delicate ferns! 
The storm crushes even you! 
Naked lies Beauty! 
Naked, aye, and slain! 
Man has triumphed! 
Man — and his shells !" 



73 



THE FLAG OF MAN 

(A Hymn of World Fraternity) 

Weave for the world the flag of man ! 
Finish the fabric our sires began! 
Out of our lives shall the thread be spun! 
Out of our veins shall the color run! 
Out of our deeds shall rise its luster! 
Out of our dreams its stars shall cluster! 
Wide as the heavens spin the span 
Of freedom's fabric — the flag of man! 

Ply the shuttle and crowd the loom! 
Spin the threads of the tyrant's doom! 
Spin humanity's hopes fulfilled — 
Shackles sundered and cannon stilled! 
Blend the glorious flags of the free 
In the far-spun cloth of fraternity! 
Twine with the victor's shining sheaf 
The somber threads of the people's grief! 
Those who inherit must know the price — 
Dye the folds in our sacrifice ! 
74. 



THE FLAG OF MAN 

Weave for the world the flag of man! 
Gather the nations into its span! 
Yea, there shall still be struggle to spin, 
And divers goals for the tribes to win, 
But show them joined in generous strife 
To lead the race to larger life; 
Lifting the torch of a common aim 
Out of warfare's trampled flame! 
Making the roads our armies beat 
Paths to a common judgment-seat! 



76 



VERSES OF CHILDHOOD 



FINGER-PRINTS 

Her little fingers stain the doors 

And blur the window-pane; 
O'er treasured books of mine she pores- 

Her finger-marks remain. 
There's flour on our piano's keys — 

She's fond of all the arts — 
And how her little fingers squeeze 

Their prints into our hearts! 

She grows: — we soon no longer may 

By smears about the place, 
Detect how she has spent the day, 

Her climbs and wanderings trace. 
Time will erase those tiny hints 

Of pastry, sweets, mud-tarts — 
But not those precious finger-prints 

Pressed deep into our hearts! 



79 



THE LITTLE COMMONER 

'Tis not through great orations, 

Or by reading history, 
That I catch the fullest meaning 

Of the word Democracy. 
For I've a baby daughter, 

And I've marked well how she greets 
The servants and the tradesmen 

And the strangers whom she meets. 

While she upon her family 

A wealth of smiles bestows, 
To No rah in the kitchen 

As warm a greeting goes; 
And the wee one's gay advances 

And her gurgles of pure joy 
Are the same to ragamuffins 

As to well-dressed girl and boy. 

Her spirit is contagious — 

It has spread about the place ; 
80 



THE LITTLE COMMONER 

It warms the coldest glances, 
And melts the frostiest face; 

And I move among my fellows 
In a cheerier, kindlier mood, 

•Since the loving little lassie 

Came to teach me Brotherhood. 



81 



WHEN LIFE CALLS 

Little one, my little one, 
Don't grow up so soon! 
Aye, I know that voices new 
Call and call and call to you, 
Yet how can my bosom spare 
Your wee head acuddling there? 
Be contented still, dear heart, 
With mother's hug and croon. 

Little one, my little one, 
Don't grow up so soon! 

Thus I pray and yet I know 

Life will never have it so! 

Childhood bids my babe come play, 

Girlhood beckons, down the way, 
And my mother-plea is drowned 
By Life's bewitching tune! 



LIGHTER CHORDS 



MARSHAL BLUEBIRD 

Bluebird, skirmisher of Spring, 
Scout for squadrons on the wing, 
Signalling the slow retreat 
Of the regiments of sleet, 
Fluting forth jour furtive trill 
To hearten timid Daffodil, 
Bidding Grass be up and sharing 
In the Dandelion's daring, 
Plotting how the rose shall throw 
Flame along the garden row, 
Rallying to field and thicket 
Sabred bee and drumming cricket — 
More than wood and brook and plain 
You liberate from Winter's chain! 
How our spirits leap and revel 
At your coming, wee "Blue Devili" 



85 



THE REPENTANT WIFE 

I want his muddy feet to come a-messin' up my 
floors ; 

I want to smell his stinkin' pipe; to see him dodgin' 
chores ; 

I want his vermin-covered hound to lie in my best 
chair ; 

I want his garments strewed around ; I want to hear 
him swear; 

I want his poker-playin' chums to come each night 
and camp! 

I want to have him home again — the shameless shift- 
less scamp! 

I'm not too proud to let him know it was my fault 
he went — 

Seems like a woman never knows enough to be con- 
tent! 

I said I wanted things kept clean — I got it, good- 
ness knows! 

I called him sinful, slippin' off to see them burlesque 
shows ! 



THE REPENTANT WIFE 

I scolded him because at meals he never said a grace ; 
Because he never tidied up when folks came to our 

place ! 
I pestered him about his faults — I was too blind to 

see 
That 'twas his good-for-nothin 5 ways that made him 

dear to me! 



87 



A BANJO ROMANCE 

I'd be no-account to Clo 
If mah fingers didn't know 

How to pick de music from dis banjo's strings! 
T'aint de player, it's de soun' 
Dat she laiks to hab aroun' — 

T'aint Remus, it's de instrument he brings! 

When I talk instead o' play, 
Den her thoughts am far away, 

An' dat sich as me is livin' she doan* know! 
But I call her back to me 
When I take upon mah knee, 

An' begin astrummin' on, dis ole banjo! 

Lawdy! Lawdy! it is strange 
How de lady's 'spression change! 

How de sunshine comes* and dances in her eyes ! 
But I'se sad as I kin be, 

Fo' I knows I'se gwine to see 

Dat 'spression leave her when de music dies ! 
88 



A BANJO ROMANCE 

Reckon I will stay awhile 
Out o' reach o' dat gal's smile! 

Mebbe den she'll miss mah banjo's music so, 
Dat, jes' starvin' fo' a tune, 
She will come an' tell me soon: 

"Remus play — an' I will be yo' bride f o' sho' !" 



THE SONG HIT 

He writes a frothy, vulgar verse — 
Then adds a chorus that is worse ! 

A jazzed and syncopated strain 
He links to his uncouth refrain; 

And then the paid song-boosters go 
To shout his theme at feast and show, 

Till those whom it was made to fit 
Attune their silly tongues to it! 

The Gods of Custom grow satiric 
When they let men call this — a lyric ! 



90 



THE LOST BAZAARS 

I always said that before I got 

Tied down by a wife and kids, 
I'd go to see the "great god Budd," 

An' the Sphinx an' Pyramids. 

It's the big bazaars I want most to see — a 

What I read in a Kipling book 
Has kept me wishin' day an' night 

For a chance to go an' look. 

I've been workin' steady in Jubb's garage, 
An' I've saved what I could have spent 

For tobacco an' movies — an' now I could take 
My tour of the Orient. 

Yet last night, on the sofa with Nance, 

Somehow I let myself slip, 
An' I kissed her, an' mentioned what I'd saved, 

But not a word of my trip ! 
91 



THE LOST BAZAARS 

Well, Nance isn't bold, jet she dropped a hint 
That lots o' folks married on less ; 

An' you see I couldn't act selfish then — 
So the matter's settled, I guess. 

I'll give her my savin's to fit up a flat. 

But to-day, as I cleaned the cars, 
A voice kept sayin' : "You paid for that kiss 

With your Oriental Bazaars !" 

THE END. 



G2 



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